With the recent furore over topless royal images, the looming conclusions of the Leveson Enquiry and the collapse of Big Pictures, we were delighted to have Charlie Pycraft who is owed thousands by his former Big Pictures boss Darryn Lyons “Mr Paparazzi” discussing,“The History of Paparazzi – The Big Picture”.

We are very pleased to have had Greek journalist, Georgia Mylonaki, a member of the Eleftherotypia newspaper strike committee and Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ General Secretary speaking at our LPB branch meeting on 26th June – “Tackling the Crisis”.

Eleftherotypia employees have been on strike for the last few months because they have not been paid since August 2011. The title was established after the defeat of the military dictatorship in 1974, it means “freedom of the press” and was originally owned by its workers. It tackled corruption and had a proud history. Georgia will tell us how they are fighting to save the newspaper.

Workers are facing the same struggles across Europe. Michelle Stanistreet has been invited to talk about the current crisis in the industry, the financial situation facing the NUJ and the strategy she is proposing for the coming months.

There have been several high profile incidents around the Olympic venues and throughout the capital in recent months, as laws are increased, terrorist alerts are raised to “severe” and the country comes under the biggest security operation since World War Two. As cases of photography restriction have hit the news, so more cases are coming to light, from architecture students being confronted by a group of private security officers to a photojournalist being jailed for seven days, accused for breaching a protest-ban injunction while documenting construction work for Games Monitor.

Bindmans partner, human rights and public law solicitor Chez Cotton and criminal law lawyer Laura Higgs will be discussing what our members are likely to face over the coming months – from terror laws and the imminent Protection of Freedom law, to private security and military personnel – and how we can be best prepared as the capital braces for the Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Laura Higgs specialises in serious crime and has a particular interest in cases which highlight human rights and political issues. She has recently acted for campaigners who have been prosecuted under the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 for holding unauthorised protests in Parliament Square.

On Tuesday 29 November 2011 the London Photographers’ Branch hosted a debate with award winning photographers Simon Norfolk and Territorial Army Sgt Alison Baskerville about propaganda, embedding, censorship, objectivity and art – The Art of War.
Simon’s widely recognised work has spanned from UK fascist groups to some of the worst war zones and refugee camps in the world. In the last ten years his work has focused on the meaning of the word “battlefield”.
Alison recently switched a 13-year career in the military to become a freelance photographer. Having scooped several awards with her previous work Alison has also recently returned from Afghanistan trip embedded with the riflemen in Helmand.

Based on a talk given to NUJ London Photographers’ Branch by Nigel Dickinson, February 2012

Article 10 of the European Convention affirms that there are human rights for the freedom of expression and public rights to receive information. But in FRANCE this right is not absolute and has to be conciliated with certain individual rights. Read the rest of this article »

In the July branch meeting David Hoffman spoke on how the Metropolitan Police were deliberately blurring the distinction between dissent and terrorism using Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT) together with the Territorial Support Group (TSG), to fill state databases with information on activists and journalists they don’t like.

Here is his slideshow and his talk with an edited version of the Q&A debate afterwards.

Increasingly we are prevented from photographing children. As professional photographers we face restrictions but also in everyday life taking family photos. This panel debate aims to explore the rights and wrongs of child photography. Has society become too paranoid? What is the law? What are the moral and ethical implications of working with children?

Neil Turner is a photographer who has worked with children for many years on the TES. Laurence Watts is chief picture editor for the charity ActionAid, which has ‘Sponsor a Child’ as a central fundraising campaign. Mike Schwarz is a partner at Bindmans Solicitors.

The NUJ’s new General Secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, answered questions from photographers at last night’s branch meeting.

After showing a film from a recent PHNAT flashmob, topics of discussion included Michelle’s union past, amalgamation proposals, union materials, rates and exploitation and systems & communication within the union (and pies). Hear the audio below. Michelle assumes the role of General Secretary on the 1st of July and takes over from Jeremy Dear.

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Branch members who wish to access the members' area of the website, which includes the minutes of all branch and committee meetings, should email info@
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Working LIves

The branch is producing a series of video interviews to illustrate the range of work undertaken by its members. The first two are with local newspaper photographer Anne-Marie Sanderson, and freelancer John Sturrock.